Ex-Hawkeye gridder teams up with 'pink wig guy' to make Waterloo money savvy

Robert Smith joins forces with "The Crazy Man in the Pink Wig" to teach financial empowerment at UNI Waterloo center

Apr 08, 2023

Michael Finley of Cedar Falls, “The Crazy Man in the Pink Wig,” has been teaching financial empowerment in the Cedar Valley area. (Courtesy photo via Facebook)

Michael Finley first put on a pink wig to make his little grandniece laugh.

Now, the retired career Army veteran does it to get people's attention about managing their finances.

The sight gag, and Finley's financial savvy, have people coming back.
And an old Iowa Hawkeye football player is using Finley's bit of razzle-dazzle to help people of all walks of life in Waterloo cross the financial-independence goal line.

Finley, more famously known as "The Crazy Man in the Pink Wig," is now regularly conducting a series of personal finance classes at the University of Northern Iowa Center for Urban Education, or UNI-CUE, in downtown Waterloo.

The inaugural set of classes concluded last month. A fall session will start Monday Oct. 2 and run successive Mondays through Nov. 20.

UNI-CUE director Robert Smith, a former standout wide receiver for the Iowa Hawkeyes, gave Finley's sessions a tryout. Smith allowed Finley first to make presentations to UNI-CUE's 30-member staff.

"I really started seeing up close how staff started responding," Smith said. Many staff could apply them to their personal situations. This spring, Smith allowed Finley to conduct the classes, live and virtually by Zoom, at UNI-CUE.

Finley's classes made it through Smith's "spring drills" with flying colors.

"I wanted to see how this session went. It's been phenomenal. It was by Zoom, coming right out of COVID, and it got a great turnout," Smith said. The sessions drew dozens of participants from throughout the community, crossing racial, cultural and socio-economic lines. Dozens more looked at the recorded sessions online. Smith says the classes reached people who had no prior contact with UNI-CUE.

So, Smith's bringing Finley and his classes back this fall. Smith's hoping for participants not just in the dozens, but the hundreds, because word is spreading.

"My goal for the fall is I want 100, 200, people, consistently," in person or virtually, Smith said. "I believe if you don't learn the resources, poverty will never leave you. If you can budget your money, you can manage your life."

Robert Smith, director of the University of Northern Iowa Center for Urban Education (UNI-CUE) (UNI photo)

Finley, a native of Jamaica, Iowa in Guthrie County near Des Moines, came to Cedar Falls in 2009 at age 45 and got a criminology degree from UNI after 26 years in the Army, serving as a military police officer and retiring as a first sergeant. Self taught on money matters through author Charles Givens' late 1980s bestseller "Wealth Without Risk," he began spreading his message, first during his military service and then on the UNI campus.

"I took that leap of faith, which is what I try to get people to do now, and it paid off," he said.

He captured statewide attention back in 2015 when he offered to give away $100,000 to folks who successfully completed a financial literacy quiz he conducted on the UNI campus. About 130 people took the test.
"I gave away the $100,000 to 10 winners," Finley said, from individual awards of $25,000 on down. "Most were average students," along with some faculty members. He was mildly surprised at the results and the payout, but said he had accumulated enough personal wealth, by practicing what he preached, to afford it. That was his point.

Finley was working with college students in a financial literacy club when Smith caught up with him. He asked Finley to conduct financial management sessions in Waterloo. first with UNI-CUE staff, and then to the Black Leadership Advancement Consortium or "24/7 BLAC," a Black community empowerment initiative started in Waterloo in response to a study by the 24/7 Wall Street online publication which in 2018 deemed Waterloo the worst place for Blacks to live in the country.

"It was really helpful getting my staff empowered," Smith said. "I've always been pushing it. In particular, in the Black community, we've never been exposed to it, in the way Mike brings it -- the knowledge he brings, and the passion he has; that I've always had.”

Yolanda Williams, Upward Bound programs director at the University of Northern Iowa Center for Urban Education in Waterloo (UNI photo)

UNI-CUE staff member Yolanda Williams, who coordinates Upward Bound educational programs, said, "I came here with no knowledge of anything financially, and I've done these classes, and this is just my new way of life. I'm using the information I’ve gotten toward making generational wealth available for my family" — not just "being more intentional" about her personal financial practices, but imparting it on her adult children and grandchildren.

"I understand my relationship with money much better,” she said. “I know when I spend, why I'm spending. I have been very critical of how I spend; paying myself first; maximizing my Roth IRA, maximizing my savings, making sure I have an emergency fund; write goals for yourself. This has changed me as a person. I never tracked my net worth before. Now I'm doing that. That is huge. I can do this. I'm all in, and there's probably 12 people I'm sharing this information with. This has been a life-changing opportunity for me."

Bethany Botchway, assistant director of the University of Northern Iowa Center for Urban Education, or UNI-CUE, in Waterloo. (Courtesy photo)

UNI-CUE assistant director Bethany Botchway, who has a young family, said saving seemed to be intimidating, but Finley has taught her you can start without a lot of money.
”I've been at this job a little more than a year," she said. She came from a position with a nonprofit organization, and realized some savings from more affordable benefits. The issue, she said, was how best to use those savings, and not simply let it sit in a bank account.

"It's very empowering to feel like I'm participating in this growth for our family," she said. "Having the knowledge there, it is like a door opening for you we're really grateful for. Normally, when you're getting this kind of knowledge it comes at a cost. Just that it's available to the community, and Mike’s doing this so graciously, it's really a blessing to a lot of people. We've had people asking, are we going to do this again.

"We've had such great feedback from the community," Botchway said. "People are staying with it, consistently having about 40 people" in person or online, and those who miss are asking for recorded versions to stay current.
"Most of us have been conditioned to plan to die," Smith said, but people also need encourage themselves and their loved ones to structure their finances to "plan to live."

"It empowers a person to really take control of their lives," Finley said.

Michael Finley of Cedar Falls, also known as “The Crazy Man in the Pink Wig,” received a Cedar Valley “Heroes Among Us” award for his financial management education efforts in 2018. (Courtesy photo via Facebook)

"What Mike's teaching is not race, or gender," Smith said. "It empowers people. We're reaching the broader community. This is what I've been trying to do in this community for 20 years now. It's been life changing. And Mike has really been a blessing to this community."

"We're all in this together," Finley said. "The military really helped me with that. You learn to deal with each person as they come. I just think we're all in this together. The way we're going to pull ourselves up is to do it together."
It echoes what Smith heard earlier in life from another military man, his football coach at Iowa and former Marine, Hayden Fry.
And if Smith has to dig into his bag of "exotics,” as Coach Fry used to say, and come up with a crazy guy in a pink wig as a trick play teach financial empowerment, so be it.

As Fry used to say, "scratch where it itches."

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